XML data transfer?

Scenario: Invoking an Entity Bean from inside a Session Bean. Send Entity Bean's attributes to client for presentation for inistance. We normally create a view class(like UserView) over the Entity Bean and send this class to the mediator. And this view class will be sent to presentation layer (for example a JSP).

Question: It'd be much more flexible if data (Entity Bean's attributes) will be sent to client as a XML file. If we want to pursue this approach

1- is it true that we do not need thoes view classes any more, and instead we should write Entity Beans' data into an XML file?

You should read JAXB concept, there are many open source like castor.org by which you can read/write xml data. There are two ways - 1. You can create dom object at the server side and send this object to the client.

I cannot think of a single good reason why an EJB should either send or receive XML. EJBs should deal with objects, XML is for inter-system communication or perhaps used for rendering to other formats.

Get your bean to return a transfer object to the client which can then marshall it to XML.